Socialist MP Gábor Harangozó said that “selling out state-owned farmland equals to selling out national independence”.

In his response, Orbán suggested that the Socialists may “wish for (communist-era) cooperatives and state farms” and insisted that “the state should have no agricultural ventures, but delegate those tasks to those who have the skills”.

Responding to Zsolt Legény, another Socialist MP, Orbán repeated his position, adding that “we do understand that you prefer keeping farmland in state ownership, since it was you who had seized it from private owners”.

The government, on the other hand, seeks to give that land to farmers and “implement a hundredyear- old smallholder programme,” Orbán said. In his answer Legény noted that he was born in 1978 and had not been “in a position to seize anything”.

Radical nationalist Jobbik MP Zoltán Magyar asked the prime minister about businessman Lőrinc Mészáros, who had “snatched 800 hectares of state-owned land leaving no chance for local farmers”.

Orbán responded that Mészáros, who is also mayor of Orbán’s native Felcsút, employs 700 people and “we are glad that he is prosperous”.

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